PART II

For those more interested in flouting authority
than in being proper and healthy, however, absinthe
was also closely identified with the counterculture.
Absinthe was romanticized and captured in artwork
and writings by playwright Alfred Jarry, Van Gogh,
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Edgar
Allen Poe, Picasso, and many others. It almost seems
as if there was no artist who lived during the great
collective binge who did not revel in absinthe.
All these artists were exemplary of an alternative
lifestyle, many going mad or simply acting like
it (facts that would later be used by prohibitionists
as proof for absinthe's evils). Simply looking at
the artwork of the time is revelatory: Degas' famous
L'Absinthe (1876) pictures two forlorn-looking café-squatters
staring, disheveled, out beyond their opaline drinks.
Although the people pictured were merely actors,
this painting later roused intense Francophobia
in England. Edouard Manet, however, dared to paint
an actual street bum with absinthe, titled The Absinthe
Drinker (1859). The man leans on a wall, vacuous-eyed
and bundled in rags. Manet's work signified the
beginning of modernist realism in painting, and
thus, absinthe and a movement against the mainstream
are linked in his work. Even more unusually, Van
Gogh (introduced to absinthe by Toulouse-Lautrec
and Gauguin) painted many of his works in ochres
and pale greens, which are the colors of absinthe.
Many of these paintings also depict the bar in which
Van Gogh drank absinthe, and himself with glasses
of the apéritif. Some believe that Van Gogh
went mad from absinthe poisoning.

Certainly, with all this artistic madness about,
drinkers were aware of the possible dangers of
absinthe. I speculate that this was another part
of the drink's seductiveness: the growing spectre
of prohibition gave absinthe a forbidden fruit
appeal as well as the attraction of flouting authority.
As Barnaby Conrad explains, "By the fin de siècle.
. .the glass of green absinthe shimmering on a
café table symbolized anarchy, a deliberate
denial of normal life and its obligations"(x).
The prohibition movement was expanding, leaving
a long trail of "absinthe kills" posters and images
of frightening skeletons pouring the "green devil"
into the mouths of poor unfortunates. Just as
today's skull and crossbones pictured on English
"Death Cigarettes" draws hip consumers to buy
the product, the image of absinthe as evil also
attracted drinkers. As an additional bonus, absinthe
drinking was easy to flaunt, for it involved convoluted-looking
paraphernalia that could be attractive as well
as collectible (Marie-Claude Delahaye displays
her vast collection of absinthe accessories in
her book, L'Absinthe: Histoire de la Fée
Verte).

The great collective binge began to slow to a
skull-splitting halt beginning with a pair of
unfortunate "absinthe murders." The first, committed
by Jean Lanfray on August 28, 1905 in Vaud, Switzerland,
is an excellent example of isolated incidents
revealing, in hindsight, underlying causes for
banning a drug. Lanfray, a 31-year-old farmer,
viciously gunned down his wife and child, then
attempted to kill himself. It was found after
the murder that Lanfray had been drinking absinthe.
It was also found at this time that Lanfray had
drunk, over the day: a creme de menthe, a cognac
and soda, seven glasses of wine, brandy-laced
coffee, another litre of wine, and another slug
of brandy. When the police learned that Lanfray
sometimes drank up to five litres of wine a day,
they might have been interested, but when they
learned that he had drunk two glasses of absinthe
on the day of the murders, the newspapers authoritatively
named the Lanfray case the "absinthe murder"(Conrad
1-3). Within a few weeks, over almost 85,000 signatures
were gathered in favor of banning the drink. Shortly
thereafter, in Geneva, an absinthe-binging man
named Sallaz killed his wife with a hatchet and
a revolver(Conrad 4). Here, an anti-absinthe petition
gained a formidable 34,702 signatures(Conrad 4).
Ideas of wormwood as a cure for drunkenness were
apparently ignored or totally disregarded. Why
were the authorities so interested in blaming
absinthe over all the other drinks Lanfray (and
possibly Sallaz) had drunken, rather than, for
instance, the excessive amounts of wine he had
imbibed?

An especially important point to investigate here
is the general public's misunderstanding of alcoholism
at this time. To begin, in the midst of the prohibitionist
excitement, the word "absinthism" came to lose its
specificity. As Delahaye writes, "absinthisme et
alcoolisme furent confondus, et [un] alcoolique
était tout simplement dénommé
un (buveur d'absinthe)"

("absinthism and alcoholism were confused, and
an alcoholic was simply deemed an "absinthe drinker.")(140).
I discovered this when I was reading a Christian,
American, prohibitionist tract from the turn of
the century entitled Absinthe and the Drink Demon.
I was confused to find that the tract tells tales
describing only alcoholics in general, and rarely
mentions absinthe drinkers specifically.

This misunderstanding seems to have a curious
usefulness for certain prohibitionists. Lanier
explains that "everyone in France continued to
share the belief that wine, which was a national
beverage, did not contribute to alcoholism, and
that, indeed, alcoholism had not been a problem
in France until the advent of industrial alcohol"(32).
Wine was believed to be healthy and natural, since
it came from the land and was a holy and time-honored
tradition, not to mention a major source of revenue.
Absinthe, however, was made with industrial alcohol,
and thus became the major target for temperance
groups in the late 1880s. I cannot help but imagine
that a major advocate of this belief had to be
the wine industry. After all, under the growing
threat of Prohibition, how better to draw attention
away from your alcoholic product than to make
people believe that it is the exception to the
"bad" rule? Thus, absinthe, once made attractive
by its affordability, became scorned for this
very reason. Ideas of its healthfulness were reversed
and seen as lies, and Jean Lanfray's wine-drinking
was entirely disregarded as the wine industry-threatening
absinthe was fingered for condemnation.

It is fascinating to find that many of the very
reasons that absinthe was popularized helped to
contribute to its banishment, lending credence
to the conviction that if something is too good,
it will eventually be stopped. An example of this
is that, in 1914 in reaction to World War I, French
government officials declared that absinthe was
weakening the military(Lanier 40). This is a startling
change from absinthe's beginnings in Algeria,
where the drink was taken to give strength to
the soldiers. Absinthe became a convenient way
to mobilize France in preparation for war: it
was a common evil that could be attacked by all
and thus bring the country together in mental
readiness as a single, fighting force. In 1915,
Henri Schmidt, a member of the French Chamber
of Deputies, stated, "Nous attaquons l'érosion
de la défense nationale. L'abolition de
l'absinthe et la défense nationale, c'est
la mÉme chose" ("We are attacking the erosion
of the national defense. The abolition of absinthe
and the national defense are the same thing.")(Aron
262). People thus gained a patriotic incentive
to ban the drink (and conversely, absinthe drinking
became anti-French, another irony in light of
the many Eiffel Tower-shaped absinthe spoons that
were widely used shortly before this time).

One of the greatest reasons behind absinthe's
banishment, however, is even more insidious than,
although linked to, the belief that it is anti-patriotic:
it is the fear of the drink's counter-culture,
revolutionary aspect. Lanier writes that absinthe
was "almost a symbol of the bohemian spirit"(46).
Just as the liqueur became attractive for its
exclusive, artistic subculture, it was frightening
for this very reason to people outside the knowing,
absintheur set. Absinthe had its own slang, which
was attractive to those in the know and undeniably
irritating, if not terrifying, to those who did
not understand the lingo. The drink also had its
own dark, shifty set of anti-socialites who were
known for their madness, including such shadowy
figures as Verlaine, who wandered most of his
hours from café to café, drinking
opaline, fainting, and having wild attacks of
violence. Verlaine was also known for his dark,
brooding poetry, which certainly made those who
felt excluded from the absinthe culture feel no
more enlightened. There was Alfred Jarry, who
so adored absinthe that he rode through Paris
on his bicycle with green paint on his face and
hands, in honor of the Green Goddess. There was
also the infamous case of Van Gogh, who finally
committed suicide after a long fight with madness,
seizures, and a strong addiction to absinthe.
While they attracted the counter-cultural, anti-society
set, none of these luminaries of infamy won over
any converts from the prohibitionist crowd.

The madness that these artists exhibited has frequently
been used as evidence that absinthe causes insanity.
The part of absinthe that has been pinpointed
by researchers as the toxic element is thujone,
a narcotic contained in wormwood. Various studies
were done at the turn of the century, trying to
determine the precise effects of this substance,
the most famous being by Dr. Motet in 1859, who
found that the substance produced "crises épileptiques"
("epileptic seizures") in dogs(Aron 261). A follow-up
study by Louis Marce reported "convulsions, involuntary
evacuations, abnormal respiration, and foaming
at the mouth"(Lanier 33) in dogs and rabbits which
were given absinthe. In 1892, Dr. Isaac Ott wrote
that "after the [subjects were injected] per jugular
of two drops of essence of absinthe. . .the facial
muscles begin with single clonic spasms, passing
into a state of tremulous spasm"(Lanier 155).
Lanier alludes to the idea that Ott tested humans
as well as animals, but does not specify which
was used in this case. University of Kansas biochemistry
professor Wilfred Niels Arnold explains simply,
"the symptoms and extent of the damage from excessive
consumption of absinthe could not be attributed
to alcohol alone"(Arnold, Absinthe 112). He goes
on to suggest that other culpable chemicals came
from the variety of leaves and flowers used in
the drink's preparation, although a 1932 study
by Paul Ricard showed that the other principal
ingredient in absinthe besides wormwood (and the
only other ingredient in the drink of noteworthy
amount) is anise, which has not been proven to
be toxic(Aron 262).

Another famous study in 1874 by Dr. Magnan compared
the action of alcohol and absinthe, determining
that absinthe alone, unlike alcohol alone, causes
epileptic seizures in man. He writes, "absinthe.
. .does not require, like alcohol, to prepare
its way, for it, as is shown by physiological
experiment, it can rapidly give rise to hallucinations
and delirium before the alcohol contained in the
liqueur of absinthe has had the time to produce
trembling in man"(Magnan 411). The precise amount
of absinthe administered in this experiment is
not stated.

Margaret Burri, a historian, wrote for the Maryland
Medical Journal in 1994, "thujone causes hallucinations,
convulsions, and permanent damage to the nervous
system"(Burri 27), demonstrating that, whether
or not this has been definitely proven, this attitude
toward thujone persists today. This is not without
cause, for as recently as September, 1997, a Washington
man suffered kidney failure following his imbibing
essential oil of wormwood, which he purchased
over the internet (Southeastern Newspapers Corporation).
The very properties that make absinthe interesting,
then, to those who wish to change their physical
state (be it for health, pleasure, or artistic
reasons) have been used to show its dangers.

The ritual of absinthe drinking, made nearly sacred
by absintheurs, is another reason that absinthe
became distasteful to prohibitionists. Charles
Perry describes this sentiment best in a recent
Los Angeles Times article. He writes, "absinthe-drinking
certainly was a drug scene.. . .[the method of
preparing the drink was] a ritualistic absorption
that reminds us of a junkie shooting up"(Perry
H6). He explains how the swirling green color
of the drink came to have the same connotations
in the 1890s that psychedelic mandalas had in
the 1960s. Both signified "druggy ecstasy"(H6).
The drink's strange, mystical preparation probably
frightened those who were out of the absinthe
loop into fearing absinthe yet more.

Finally, absinthe was one of the first alcoholic
drinks advertised to and publicly enjoyed by women.
Picasso painted several famous pictures of female
absinthe drinkers, including the highly unsettling
image The Absinthe Drinker (1901). This portrait
pictures a painfully gaunt, red-lipped, black-haired
and bony woman preparing her absinthe while staring
vacantly into space. Dark figures hover in the
background. When the portrait was painted, ideas
of women's liberation were only just beginning,
and they were undoubtedly very upsetting to many
Victorian-era men who were comfortable with their
lives as they were, where women were sexually
silent and socially so, as well. The fact that
women were showing up in bars as well as on absinthe
posters, gaily enjoying alcohol along with men,
may have inspired many men to oppose absinthe
with the underlying reason that they were opposing
women's liberation. They were able to disguise
their sentiments with the claim that absinthe
was unhealthy.

Naturally, the question that all these reasons
for banishment raises is: are the claims of absinthe's
toxicity legitimate? The answer is a complicated
one, and not definitive. This uncertainty is what
is interesting about it, however: the idea that
maybe absinthe is not as dangerous as it is often
said to be. In recent times, so little has been
said about absinthe at all that the idea that
it might not be singularly more harmful than any
other liqueur has hardly been explored.

The most obvious place to look for evidence of
the truth of absinthe's toxicity is to the studies
that are so often quoted as proof of its dangers.
It seems most notable that the majority of these
studies were performed between 1880 and 1905.
Although this does not make them worthless, it
is at least important to realize that almost all
the reports on absinthe today are based on the
results of these same, very few experiments, so
if any are incorrect, most modern absinthe literature
is also incorrect. It is also tempting to assume
that the experiments performed at this time were
not as precise as those that could be performed
today, simply because most equipment today is
more advanced than that used when these experiments
were done. It is interesting to examine, for instance,
one widely-cited experiment by Rubert Boyce, M.B.,
performed in 1894. Boyce experimented with the
results of absinthe stimulation on cats' brains.
Boyce removed different parts of the cats' brains
in order to determine how the absinthe affected
each part. He found that epileptic fits were caused
in the remaining cerebral lobes when either lobe
was removed and absinthe administered, and that
no fits resulted when the hemispheres were both
removed and absinthe administered. Thus, it was
found that absinthe affected the brains of cats,
causing fits(Boyce 273). What I noted about this
briefly described experiment is that a "fit" is
not defined in the abstract, making it difficult
to determine how dangerous these might be. Also,
we do not know how precisely the organs were removed
and how carefully the observations were taken
(we are not given a chart of timed results), and
finally, human beings are not cats, so we do not
know if the results would be the same in people.